From January to August 2016, Amanda B. Edgell (PhD Candidate, Political Science) conducted fieldwork in Uganda and Kenya. Edgell’s dissertation assesses the effectiveness of gender quotas at achieving long-term, sustainable representation for women in national legislatures. Capitalizing on a unique electoral system for allocating designated women-only seats in Uganda and Kenya, the research combines qualitative and quantitative within-case analysis. The fieldwork included nearly 50 interviews with members of parliament (both current and former) and representatives from civil society organizations, archival research, and statistical data collection on elections and parliamentary debates. The project aims to assess how reserved women-only seats influence female candidature for mainstream (non-quota) positions and the performance of members of parliament under a quota regime.
The findings will provide further insights into whether gender quotas act as a mechanism for overcoming systemic barriers for women’s political participation or if, to the contrary, they institutionalize a glass-ceiling for women’s representation. The results will have implications for academics who study gender and political institutions, as well as, policymakers in countries with quotas or where quotas are currently being considered as a solution to female underrepresentation in politics.
This research was supported by the O. Ruth McQuown Fellowship (AY 2015-2016), the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Dissertation Fellowship (Summer 2016), and the Department of Political Science Summer Research OPS Funding (Summer 2016).